SNA gears up for reauthorization fight - House bill would extend grazing permits

By BILL TOMSON

07/16/2014 10:01 AM EDT

With help from Helena Bottemiller Evich and Chase Purdy

SNA GEARS UP FOR REAUTHORIZATION FIGHT: The School Nutrition Association is rallying its members and readying its war chest for an escalation of the school nutrition fight. While much of the battle has focused on controversial language in the House agriculture spending bill to offer struggling schools waivers this school year, the real war is going to be over rewriting the law behind all the changes.

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“The appropriations bill is only one of our direct avenues for change,” Wendy Weyer, nutrition director for Seattle Public Schools, who chairs SNA’s public policy committee, told members at the SNA’s annual conference in Boston yesterday. “SNA has developed a unique and well thought-out legislative plan that carries us up through child nutrition reauthorization and forward into its implementation.”

SNA officials encouraged attendees to talk to their members of Congress and invite them to visit their schools. They solicited donations for the SNA PAC from the crowd, while highlighting recent fundraisers held with Rep. Rodney Davis and Sen. John Boozman. The association has already started surveying its members to help sharpen its lobbying platform, but SNA officials say their policy paper, released earlier this year, is a pretty good blueprint for what they will be seeking for reauthorization. The Obama administration remains opposed to the association’s asks. The SNA policy paper can be found here: http://bit.ly/WgcjLk

HAPPY WEDNESDAY! Welcome to Morning Ag where your host, probably like you, is looking for something to fill the void now that there’s no World Cup futbol to peek at during the day. But the USDA’s Forest Service may be able to help. For the second year, the agency has set up a live stream (pun intended) video at the bed of Steep Creek, in Juneau, Alaska, to watch as the salmon swim by. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTa2Q_QTUsY . Drop me a line to let me know your thoughts at btomson@politico.com or @BillTomson4. And follow us @ Morning_Ag and @ POLITICOPro.

USDA URGES SNA TO NOT GIVE UP ON CHANGES: Just before SNA gave its members an update on lobbying, the audience heard from Janey Thornton, USDA’s deputy under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer service and former SNA president, and she had a clear message: Change is hard, but don’t give up. She said she recognizes that there are challenges, but pointed to two districts in Tennessee and Texas that have worked through hard times to actually increase their student participation under the new nutrition regulations.

“We cannot give up,” she said. “We won’t give up because what you are doing is the right thing to do for kids.”

Earlier Thornton was interviewed by Pro Agriculture’s Helena Bottemiller Evich and told her that schools shouldn’t go it alone on salt changes, suggesting one big problem is that schools are reducing sodium faster than the rest of the country. See Bottemiller Evich’s article from the interview here: http://politico.pro/1wrfFFZ

VIDEO CHATS AT SNA: Watch Pro Agriculture’s Bottemiller Evich’s recap of each day of the SNA event with Editor Jason Huffman here: http://politi.co/1mc6u6F

HOUSE BILL WOULD EXTEND GRAZING PERMITS: Grazing permits on public lands would be extended from 10 years to 20 years under a spending bill passed, 29 to 19, Tuesday by the House Interior Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Committee.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association likes the move. The extra time would allow ranchers to better prepare for the environmental analyses required for permit renewal, a process that runs into backlog, NCBA says. Additionally, the bill would allow livestock to graze uninterrupted during the analyses process.

Also in the bill: a move to block adding the Sage Grouse to the endangered species list, which could impact the number of livestock grazing on public lands. The bird’s habitat covers 11 western states. http://bit.ly/W805nQ

** Innovation Is Growing In The Corn Fields of America. There is More You Should Know About America’s Biggest Crop. **

MEXICO AMBASSADOR: SUGAR TALKS NOT UNDERWAY: The United States and Mexico are not actively discussing a possible sugar trade agreement to resolve an anti-dumping and countervailing duty complaint brought by U.S. producers, Eduardo Medina-Mora, Mexico's ambassador to the United States, said Tuesday.

"There are no discussions whatsoever as we speak," Ambassador told POLITICO Pro during a break in a discussion on the North American Free Trade Agreement at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "Of course, that's one of the many potential outcomes. But it's just like the football World Cup. You begin and then anything goes."

A coalition of 17 groups, most of which represented sugar users, earlier on Tuesday expressed concern with rumors the Obama administration is considering the negotiation of a managed trade agreement that would set restrictions on imports of Mexican sugar. The groups, which include the Chamber of Commerce, claim in a letter to the United States Trade Representative that the U.S. is being pressured to accept such an agreement to resolve antidumping and countervailing duty petitions that domestic U.S. sugar producers have filed against Mexican sugar imports. Click here for the letter sent by the coalition: http://bit.ly/1sYH3uE

USDA MOVES TO REVISE TOMATO IMPORT REGULATIONS: The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services is taking comments on updated requirements for the importing of tomatoes from parts of Spain, Chile, France, Morocco, and Western Sahara.

APHIS explains that its process for preventing the import of tomatoes infested with the Mediterranean fruit fly requires phytosanitary certificates and record-keeping of trap placement and fly captures. But during a review of regulations last approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget in 2011, APHIS officials said they discovered that the quality control program, box markings and registration of production, greenhouse and treatment facilities were not included. So APHIS is now asking the OMB to approve changes for an additional three years. The comment period will close Sept. 15. http://bit.ly/1p1Z2Od

REPORT IDENTIFIES 175 LEGAL PACKAGING SUBSTANCES THAT COULD POSE HEALTH RISKS: Styrene, Bisphenol A and various phthalates all make the Food Packaging Forum’s list of 175 potentially hazardous substances legally contained in food packaging materials used in the United States and Europe.

To build their 13-page paper, the authors say they reviewed the 2013 Pew Charitable Trusts database of direct and indirect food additives legally used in the United States, the current European Union-wide positive list for plastic FCMs (food contact materials) and the 2011 non-plastics substances database published by the European Food Safety Authority. Several of the materials on the list have been linked to cancer, while others are believed to impact reproductive systems.

A different study published recently in Environmental Health showed that infants with typical diets still consume twice as much phthalates as the EPA deems safe through interaction with plastic packaging, despite the reduced use of BPA in baby bottles. The Food Packaging Forum’s study is here: http://bit.ly/1rcMmXe.

STILL TOO MUCH BPA: The FDA has banned Bisphenol A from baby bottles and sippy cups to reduce child exposure to the chemical linked to cancer, but BPA is still ubiquitous in food containers and other products and that needs to change, three Democratic lawmakers write in a recent issue of Roll Call.

“The list of items that contain BPA is long, but progress by the Food and Drug Administration to adequately protect consumers has been slow and inadequate,” Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Rep Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) say in the joint opinion piece. “BPA is still used in all sorts of other food packaging, exposing not only those who consume those products, but also the factory workers who assemble them, to harmful levels of BPA.”

The solution, they say is a recently introduced bill, the Ban Poisonous Additives Act, “which would remove BPA from food packaging, encourage the development of safe alternatives, and ensure a thorough safety review of all substances currently used in food and beverage containers.” To read the opinion piece, click here: http://bit.ly/1p4xnMG

NIFA TO PRIORITIZE GRANT SELECTION PROCESS: The National Institute of Food and Agriculture is soliciting stakeholder input on how it will prioritize Centers of Excellence agricultural research grants and extension programs. NIFA will hold web-based listening sessions July 17 and 31. More information can be found at: http://1.usa.gov/U6Rujn

BRANTLEY TO CHAIR USA RICE: The USA Rice Federation has elected Arkansas rice farmer Dow Brantley to be its new chairman. Brantley will serve a two-year term, beginning Aug. 1. He replaces outgoing chairman Mark Denman, a Texas rice miller.

MA’s INSTANT OATS

-- Voices are calling for the development of more organic agriculture in China in response to recent scandals linked to chemical use, but can the country support this? http://bit.ly/1qZGkKp

-- The USDA Food and Nutrition Service announced a national average value of donated foods for the 2015 school year of 24.75 cents. The value, up 6.1 percent from last year, applies to meals served by schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, as well as the Child and Adult Care Food Program. http://bit.ly/1qcl5qZ

-- Researchers in Australia have published a paper in Nature Genetics explaining how a project to map the genomes of 234 cattle and store that information in a database will increase productivity in the dairy and beef industries and enhance breeding practices. http://bit.ly/U4bjrC

** America's corn farmers exported $6.3 billion worth of corn last year — one of the few U.S. products with a trade surplus (USDA). Learn more at www.CornFarmersCoalition.org **

** A message from the Center for Sportfishing Policy: Without modernization of America’s federal fisheries management system, 440,000 jobs could be jeopardized and the nation’s 11 million marine recreational anglers could be stranded at the dock. Unreasonably short and closed fishing seasons, inconsistency in setting seasons, and the usage of decades-old data threaten the future of the recreational fishing industry. Fortunately, a bipartisan coalition in Congress has introduced the Modern Fish Act to reform key aspects of the broken federal fisheries management system.

If passed, the Modern Fish Act will allow for greater public access to America’s waters by allowing provenalternative management techniques that account for the fundamental differences between recreational and commercial fishing. The legislation also promotes marine conservation goals to ensure healthy fisheries for future generations.

America’s saltwater anglers, and their $63 billon economic impact, are depending on Congress to pass the Modern Fish Act and finally recognize the social and economic importance of marine recreational fishing. Learn more: http://bit.ly/2hdnFf0 **